S&W Pilot

Inspired by Swords & Wizardry

What’s this all about?

I started D&D with a very short stint with the Red Box set, and quickly moved “up” to 2nd Edition when I found it at the local hobby shop. So finding Swords & Wizardry & chgowiz’s blog was a revelation. I’d never guessed there could be so much play in the original rules.

So, I want to try it out for myself.

Flavor

I’d call this setting “low fantasy”, aka Swords & Sorcery. The adventurers are not necessarily heroes, or even heroic. I aim to give the world more verisimilitude than your (well, my) typical D&D 4.0 or 3.5 setting. As such, the PCs are not the center of the world, or of a grand plot. So this would be a “sandbox”-ish setting; hooks for adventure will present themselves, but the world will go on even if the PCs decide to sit in the bar and drink their starting gold away.

Rules

House Rules

No XP Bonuses
In someone’s blog, I don’t recall where, it was mentioned that XP Bonuses were originally the only way that characters benefitted form high ability scores, so keeping them around after adding ability score bonuses is kind of double-dipping. So, just ability score bonuses, no XP bonuses.

Dwarfs
As Elves can choose whether to play as Fighters or Magic-Users from day to day, Dwarfs can choose to play as Fighters or Clerics from day-to-day.